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Surname Etymology and Meaning of BICKER

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Name meanings and etymologies are often disputed. The information here is compiled from freely available sources, and no claims whatsoever are made for accuracy, either historical or etymological.

1. Dutch and German: occupational name for a stonemason or someone who used or made pickaxes or chisel, from bicke ‘pickaxe’, ‘chisel’ + the agent suffix -er. Compare Bick.
2. English: occupational name for a beekeeper, Middle English biker (from Old English bicere). Bees were important in medieval England because their honey provided the only means of sweetening food (sugar being a more recent importation); honey was also used in preserving.
3. English: habitational name from Bicker in Lincolnshire or Byker in Tyne and Wear, both named with the Old English preposition bi ‘by’, ‘beside’ + Old Norse kjarr ‘wet ground’, ‘brushwood’.

Source: Dictionary of American Family Names (2003)